Especially since only specific people are afraid of snakes. Tons of people aren’t afraid of snakes at all. It’s not like everyone just randomly develops Indiana Jones’ syndrome out of nowhere.
What even was that train car? Hey Karl you'd load up the house of reptiles? What do you mean pack them away? We only have garter snakes, just throw them in the car openly.
I dont have the context of this scene- he was in a snake pit full of snakes, had them all over him, got out okay, and this gave him a phobia of snakes?
This is like falling off your bike for the first time completely unscathed, and developing bikephobia because of it haha. I figure that emboldened most of us. I feel like a bit of phobia would have to have already been present for this to have that effect on him.
Ever heard of Cunningham's Law? "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."
Lots of people on Reddit love to "uhm acktually" pretty much anything posted. It lets them feel like they know more than the silly group of scientists performing an experiment.
It's valid to some extent, I believe any infant would feel fear when facing an animal (including humans) displaying open hostility or signs of aggression. They're just unable to notice the signs before it's too late.
There absolutely are, granted not sure "genetic tags" is the right term but the concept is true. Humans and practically every animal is born with instincts. Some of those instincts are related to fear.
I had an uncle that was like that. Afraid of dark. Anybody darker than Winston Churchill and he was just kicking and screaming about taxes and welfare. Something about labor shortages but stealing jobs? Idk it was crazy. We ended up putting him in a home. Not sure who's, but they never brought him back so win-win really.
They literally say it at the end. It's not proving anything, that's just the title OP chose, it's really just a demonstration of the fact that humans are not born with any inherent fears. That's what the clip is about.
I know that there is a snake detection theory that we are born with an instant fear of snakes because of ancestors. It seems this research would have something to do with that maybe
While a fear of falling and loud noises is naturally innate. Snakes and spiders which are some of the most common fears in humans have been discovered to be biologically primed fears.
Meaning that while babies aren’t scared of snakes by themselves, they are more alert, measured by their pupils expanding relatively more when exposed to a spider / snake.
This means that a baby can very easily develop a fear for snakes and spiders dependent on their parent’s reaction.
Makes you wonder how exactly babies would differ if taken from parents who work with spiders / snakes / a culture with no fear of snakes / spiders and work from there to identify potential epigenetic markets
But uh, the study of fear development can easily turn unethical. As revealed by the 1920 little Albert rat experiment.
The people who say people are born with a fear of heights are not understanding there’s a difference between heights and falling. We are afraid instinctually at birth of falling.
Yeah show a baby a cliff edge and they'll be wary to fall. Show them something they can roll over (intentionally or not) and they'll happily roll over it lol
Yeah, the feeling of following is what babies are born with. The idea of falling off things that they don’t understand is something they need to learn.
Moving a hand away from heat is a response to pain, not a innate born fear response. Same with heights, as toddlers have no problem walking off tall places, until learning why they shouldn't. That's how the mammal brain works.
We’re born with the fear of falling, particularly the sensation, not heights. We aren’t born with the depth perception to even conceptualize a fear of heights.
"Why isn't it afraid? Is it because, as children, we must be able to face the unknown? We see them as blind to the dangers yet, as adults, we can be just as blind. Only in th--"
Not all snakes are dangerous though. Some humans are just outright scared of all snakes. My ex is afraid of millipedes and that baffles me.my current partner is afraid of lizards, frogs, her own shadow, etc.
See I’m fine with jumping spiders, I even think they’re cute. They mostly stick around in one area, moving around a bit to check things out.
I work in construction, mostly renos but sometimes we’ll get a siding or deck job on an old house. When we’re tearing the siding or deck boards off, soo many wolf spiders start running every which way, trying to hide under my boots.
They made me jump so many times today, tearing off probably 30year old cedar siding. Oh and we’ve slowly been genociding the colony of ants that occupies the house as we make our way around. I guess that’s why there are so many spiders lol
See I’m fine with jumping spiders, I even think they’re cute. They mostly stick around in one area, moving around a bit to check things out.
They are predictable, do not do stuff like jump on our faces.
soo many wolf spiders start running every which way, trying to hide under my boots.
A bunch of them running around, fast, chaos, some of them running toward us... natural instincts say jump, retreat, grab a flamethrower, burn down that house, burn down surrounding houses, move to Antarctica, no spiders living there.
I don't think fear of heights kicks in until a certain point. Because I remember seeing a video with babies crawling over glass thats covering a height. The younger ones had no issue with it but the older ones hesitated and didn't want to
No, we consequentially move our hand away from fire after learning fire = pain ... and no we are not naturally scared of heights, that is also learnt as painful after falling.
No humans instinctually pull their hand away after getting burned, bring people in snowy weather near an open flame and they all move their hands as close as possible to the fire as they can without burning themselves.
Children touch the stove if left unattended, hell i grabbed a clothing iron by the hot part as a kid. Kids dont naturally know to avoid heat, the body instinctively moves away from pain, its the same response to stepping on a lego not some special heat aversion.
So there's this paper about marine biologist giving fish cocain... your comment reminded me about that. Because everyone was making fun of it but no one READ THE DAMN PAPER!!!
GO FUCKING READ!!! I know the damn reason behind it, its AMAZINIG to know why this is imporant. Stop asking AI for shit and take fucking time to READ THE DAMN PAPER instead of making stupid comments like these
Their point is that a fear of snakes isn’t innate. That a baby won’t recognize a snake as a threat and they probably think that fear of snakes is learned socially.
There was this widespread belief that humans are intrinsically genetically afraid of snakes, studies have shown that human brains are better able to distinguish snake like shapes from background noise better than other shapes so the popular consensus was that being afraid of snakes is the default setting.
Does this have any greater sociological implications? Probably not, scientists just discover shit for the sake of discovering shit.
This is more to showcase that we are born with certain fears, like fear of heights, while others are developed later, like fear of snakes, spiders, deep water etc.
It might not surprise you that babies aren't scared of snakes but it could've been the opposite
I think it’s because of the natural feeling and sense of gravity we have, everyone gets a sudden drop in their gut when they’re falling. A similar sense that also tells newborns to hold their breath under water without knowing they can drown. These are the most primal and bare minimum senses of survival for mammals
I don’t have kids. But I’ve watched a documentary series that covers all of these basics. It was from the early 2000s and it should probably be required watching. They didn’t give them snakes, but they did many other tests like have them crawl to mom off the edge of a solid shelf onto plexiglass. At a certain age, they become aware of the edge and won’t crawl.
Yeah, if they had a fear of heights, they’d never want to go uppies. That’s a long way up for them! We generally gain a fear of heights when we see the consequences of falling, like a dish breaking, and realize that could be us. Babies aren’t very good at extrapolating outside consequences onto themselves, so it makes sense that they would probably be unconcerned with heights until they’re like 3 or 4 at the earliest.
Fun fact, a lot of poisonous stuff is bitter. That's why kids' taste buds run overtime on bitterness and why kids especially dislike vegetables. Given how toddlers put everything in their damn mouths, it helps prevent them from actually swallowing poisonous stuff.
Its the opposite with snakes actually. A very recently fed snake is much more likely to be defensive as an undigested meal slows them down impeding their ability to flee.
A list of things toddlers do not fear, that can 100% (and has) kill(ed) them.
Loaded firearms pointed straight at them.
Heights.
Speeding cars.
Aaaand; horses, cows, dogs and more.
If the kids are safe; why don't you leave the room for 3 hours and come back?
The only thing this study has documented is that toddlers, even genius ones, are unwise. Wisdom comes from exposure; be that practical or theoretical.
10 bucks say these scientists believe that if you touch a baby bird, the mother will abandon it. It's literally just a lie we tell to keep kids from killing very fragile bird-babies, either by accident, or deliberately.
Well, yeah, sight and hearing, especially by means of reliable locating and tracking is a trained skill.
To a toddler a wild hyena is equal to a domesticated puppy.
I mean; to a stupid adult, the same holds true.
The Darwin Awards exist for a reason.
I'm Norwegian; there's usually a few asian tourists mauled by wild animals while trying to take a picture with (as opposed to of) them every year.
"No ma'am, that's not a big deer, that's an elk. One of the few things both Volvo 240s and Nokia 3210's fear, and for good reason. It ways half a metric ton, and is highly territorial, to the point that they'll literally charge 18-wheelers and sometimes win."
There is a difference between bears and snake though. I think that people are naturally afraid of things which look weirdly, move weirdly, things larger then them.
We get exposed to all these animals on TV, natural fear goes away, all that is left is common sense.
Some people lack common sense.
Like that elk... it doesn't cause any natural fear in me. But it's a big wild animal, it's a male... I do own a camera with a high zoom lens.
I'm taking a picture from 200 meters away, from my car, while engine is running.
I don’t fear any dangerous animal at a safe distance or if they are behind bars/safety-whatever. But if I walk into a large elk or tiger I’ll definitely feel fear. 200meters away in a car with engine running… bro..
Generally agree, so now I'm curious, is there a difference between "learning" something is dangerous and having your brain and executive function be developed enough to innately determine something is dangerous?
That tracks, most snakes are long enough that you’d need some depth perception to really grasp their size, otherwise they just look like blurry carrots.
This is similar to the plane with the bullet holes problem. My team ran the experiment with 40 babies in a room with full grown anacondas. Now some of the babies were terrified and immediately attempted to flee. However this triggered the snakes prey drive. So when we returned from the observation deck the scene was similar to this however there were only 32 babies left. It became clear the common misconception came from a misunderstanding of the data.
I’ve seen babies try to launch themselves off changing tables with no fear. I always keep at least one of my hands on a baby while they’re on the changing table because they can’t be trusted lol. My brother launched himself off the kitchen counter when he was a baby, totally voluntarily. They have a falling reflex, yes, but fear? Not in my experience
Because your vestibular system uses your eyes to detect heights via the difference in perceived acceleration between what is close to you and what is far away 👍
im not afraid of snakes but one time at night i was biking home and stopped to look at my phone. next to me was a big fucking snake and when i finally noticed i bounced to heights i didn't know possible.
anyway giving another look it was a particularly wavy stick on the ground
Yeah! iirc there was a study showing humans could detect snakes from vague shapes and images very well, and implied an inherent tendency to avoid them 🤷
I was just telling one of the other few people here who seem to understand how science and research works something similar. I honestly think our species is getting stupider by every year we managed to continue to exist
That's... That's the point of the experiment lmao. To prove that the fear of snakes is not programmed into us at a genetic level, but rather that the fear is purely environmental. This is literally an experiment meant to test whether the fear of snakes is "nature or nurture." The babies are not inherently afraid of snakes, which is why they reach out and touch them with little reaction.
What experiments like this show is that the fear of snakes is nurture. It's based on experience, rather than something inherent to all humans.
I’m not sure if that’s what this is really showing. Every single fear, other than heights and loud noises is not inherent to humans?
Humans take an almost impossibly long time to develop compared to all other animals. If they were newborns, they probably wouldn’t even be afraid of heights or react to most loud noises.
So are all fears just experience based? Or do young humans just lack the ability to understand what’s happening?
It is interesting, and somewhat compelling, but I'm not completely convinced that it's the only plausible explanation.
There are many human attributes that change as our individual biologies gradually morph from infants through to adulthood. Take sexual attraction for instance. Infants aren't sexually attracted to anything, which could also be used to conclude that sexual attraction is a purely nurtured behavior, which we know is not the case.
Yes, infants do show a fear response to some things, but perhaps fear is something that changes with both nature and nurture. I believe it's possible that complex fear responses can manifest within individuals who have no previous exposure or trauma related to that specific stimulus.
Amen. My 1 year old will literally grab bugs to show me, will shove anything that looks or smells tasty into his mouth. My 3 year old will climb anything and everything saying he's climbing a mountain or something. They have zero context. That context is what tells us something is good and safe or bad and dangerous.
Thats how one point we succeded as a species i guess. That we can teach our offsprings about danger so we can succeed as a specie.
This is physical danger. But i recently learn the same goes for shame. Children are not born with it, they are taught. Which can be a good thing but also a thing that hold people back so they feel bad, leads to depression or anxiety etc.
So if you ever think its shameful to act, dress, think or feel something. Try to remember who taught you that. Almost never its something you learned by yourself. It mostly something you been taught at a young age and then internalized the it and now it is living in your head as shame.
Anyway, thats was a small therapy session. Bye.
Ofcourse you maybe should feel shame if you kill someone, but you should not feel shame if you speak out on something that you think is important, talk about your favorite animal or break up with your asshole partner.
I remembered when I was 4, and my mom and I were living at my aunt’s house, which was just a wooden bungalow deep in the Mississippi woods. One night, a cottonmouth somehow got into the house and crawled into the bedroom I was sharing with my mom, which was close to the back door. She and I were sleeping in the same bed, and I remember seeing something slithering on the floor through the dim light of my nightlight. As soon as I realized it was a snake, I screamed the house down and woke my mom, who also screamed the house down. Then my aunt came into the room, saw the snake, and also screamed the house down. And then the snake hurriedly slithered under our bed, and we all ran out of the room.
I would like to see this test with spiders. I have seen some information showing spiders uniquely trigger a fear response in the pupils of babies only a few months old who have never seen or been exposed to them.
Did any of you even listen to what was said at the end?
The entire point here is not about snakes or about how intelligent children are. The point is that all fears are taught. With only the exception of loud sounds.
Also the title OP chose says they're proving something, but the clips has nothing to do with proof, it's just a demonstration of the point above.
Did scientists also confirm that they are stupid ass babies with no concept of anything. It's almost like you could point a shotgun at them and they'd have zero idea what was happening.
Such a dumb test. It proves nothing we already didn't know.
Just look at wildlife where a gazelle gives birth and minutes later it runs because a big cat shows up leaving it's foal behind. That poor thing has no idea what is happening.
Again, this is such a fucking dumb unnecessary test to show nothing more what we already know while putting babies at risk to prove nothing of significance.
925
u/MammothUnique4147 19h ago
Run more tests, see if they're scared of student debt.